Dave makes the point that L/A have effectively conceded the vision to their GMs and have done a reasonable job supporting them financially. However, L/A do not seem to have a long term plan for the organization and are not able to intercede when the GM is making poor decisions that cripple the organization over time. The lack of a long term vision is seen with the drastically different styles between Gillick and Bavasi. It seems more like throwing darts and seeing what sticks. What new direction will the franchise go now? The inability to understand what the GM was doing became apparent with the Bedard trade. Why would you build your farm system and actually develop players ideal for Safeco and then trade them away? Especially when you do not have other players waiting in the wings to fill their roles? L/A were just as clueless about the Mariners chances this year as Steve Phillips was.

My optimism for the Mariners is based on L/A losing much of their control of the team this off-season. If they remain in control I do not see how the next GM will be significantly better.

To me, the key question here is this: do Lincoln/Armstrong think they’ve “learned” something important in Bavasi’s failure?

There’s no doubt that they gave both Bavasi and Gillick free rein to design the organization, and I have very little doubt that they’ll allow a new GM to do the same.

But I worry that may think that Bavasi’s colossal failure indicates that Gillick’s strategies really are better – that the problem with the Bavasi’s tenure was the *premise* of building through the farm and scouting the draft.
This season’s been so completely terrible that it might lead to slightly more emotional decision making. That is, that anyone who sounds a bit like Bavasi might not get a fair hearing. If that means that they ask for detailed descriptions of what a ‘good’ ballplayer can do and how you identify them, fine. If it means that they’re skeptical that player development is anything more than an expensive lottery ticket, that’s bad.

I don’t really know how to handicap this, so I’ll leave it to those with more knowledge of the people involved. But while I think they’ll invest in the team and while I think they’ll give the GM a ton of authority, there’s still a way they could screw this up.

1) Almost every question, concern and theory expounded in the last two threads as well as the comments to each will be answered not only by who the next GM turns out to be, but more importantly the process Lincoln and Armstrong take to choose him (or her). Because…

2) Both are intelligent, savvy businessmen. They know the height of foolishness is repeating the same processes again and again while expecting a different result. They want their next choice of GM to be as successful as we want it to be. They will almost certainly challenge their own assumptions much more harshly than their fans ever could. They may not have earned it the past few years, but for that reason alone they do deserve some benefit of doubt.

To be perfectly honest, it’s not going to faze me a lot to see the team not make a big-name signing in the offseason and take payroll down some, because the ones that are out there who are worth big bucks (Tex) have serious downside risk, and a number of the problems on the roster don’t require backing up a Brinks armored truck- they’ll have to churn a lot of the roster, but they can do some of that quite cheaply.

Say, d’ya think there difference in outlook between Dave and Derek can be accounted for in part because Dave’s in sunny, warm North Carolina while Derek is here in Seattle, looking at the start of the seven-eight-nine-month rainy season?